The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity in a Racial World, Brian Bantum

The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity i a Racial World, By Brian Bantum

Brian Bantum says that race is not merely an intellectual category or a biological fact. Much like the incarnation, it is a “word made flesh,” the confluence of various powers that allow some to organize and dominate the lives of others. In this way racism is a deeply theological problem, one that is central to the Christian story and one that plays out daily in the United States and throughout the world.

In The Death of Race, Bantum argues that our attempts to heal racism will not succeed until we address what gives rise to racism in the first place: a fallen understanding of our bodies that sees difference as something to resist, defeat, or subdue. Therefore, he examines the question of race, but through the lens of our bodies and what our bodies mean in the midst of a complicated, racialized world, one that perpetually dehumanizes dark bodies, thereby rendering all of us less than God's intention.

“We are all participating in the story of race. It is ubiquitous. It has shaped how we live, who we live with, how we see others, how we see ourselves.”

— Brian Bentum, Introduction, Death of Race, Building a New Christianity in a Racial world

Dr. Brian Bantum is the Neil F. and Ila A. Fisher Chair of Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. He writes and teaches on the intersections of theology and embodiment, particularly on questions of race and identity.

Dr. Bantum is a regular contributor to the Christian Century and has published two books: Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridityand The Death of Race: Building a New Christianity in a Racial World. He speaks throughout the country on how racial imagination shapes our identity and how our lives as disciples might live into the fullness of God’s life and create spaces of justice and flourishing and life in their midst, becoming slight glimmers of God’s present and coming kingdom. Dr. Bantum holds a B.A. from Houghton College, and an M.T.S. and Ph.D. from Duke University.